Coming back her to give a more recent update a year since my last post.
My previous update (post 37) from September 2021 named her feet as the problem, which they were a contributing factor but time would tell us that they weren’t the entire answer. The summer and early fall of 2021 she was great. The temps started dropping in November and we started to see previous symptoms rear their heads again. Tight back, bucking, stiffness to the left, resistance to canter and rushing / dis-united once cantering. She also ramped up her stall kicking to the point of destroying it on 2-3 occasions.
Treated for ulcers showed mild improvement. Saddles checked and were fine. Rebuilding the stall got expensive so barn manager evicted her to over-night turnout alone, coming in for several hours during the day while others used the field. This also saw some improvement in symptoms.
By late January I was at my wits end, and started to put the full picture together:
- Symptoms all seemed muscular not joint related
- Winter much worse than summer / warm weather
- She seems to need unusually heavy blanketing, not even accounting for the fact she was raised unstalled in Canada unblanketed until 3
- most issues in the canter, trot issues are one-rein stiffness
- seems worse after several days off, more turn out seemed to help
- seemed prone to ulcers despite a low stress life
Based on those, we decided to treat her as if PSSM2. Overhauled her diet and lifestyle management – over the next ~2 months started to see big improvement. By summer and warmer weather she was like a regular young(ish) horse just needing strength and conditioning. Toe dragging gone, circumducting basically gone (unless gets unbalanced), spookiness gone, cross-cantering started to disappear.
She’s now back competing in low level eventing and doing great. Winter will be an interesting test as it’s always harder (considering sending her south).
Hopefully this update proves helpful to future readers who may struggle with similar symptoms!
